


(my mother never told me) love is just a bloodsport

by ravn (orphan_account)



Series: VOLΛTILE TIMES [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: (or trying to), M/M, old men talking about their feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 14:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1821754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ravn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War is easy; love isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(my mother never told me) love is just a bloodsport

"What the fuck are we doing?" Levi snaps apropos of nothing one night while he and Erwin are finishing up the day’s paperwork.  
  
It’s hours past curfew and they’re both tired. It would be so easy for Erwin to dismiss the question as nothing more than the by-product of exhaustion; it would be even easier to order Levi out of his office, but something has been building up between them in the past few weeks and now it finally reached its boiling point.  
  
It isn’t something Erwin wants to deal with (none of the things he _has_ to deal with are things he _wants_ to deal with, really) but such is his lot in life and Erwin isn’t the kind to postpone matters, however unpleasant they may be.  
  
(Admittedly, the timing could have been better.)  
  
He sighs and leans forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “What do you mean?”  
  
He won’t pretend that he thinks Levi’s pissed because of the late hour or the amount of paperwork they have to do. This isn’t about that and they both know it, and the sooner they get it over with the better.  
  
Levi fixes him with a dark look and dives straight into the heart of it. “Eren,” he says. “The fuck are we doing with him— _to_ him?”  
  
And there it is, out in the open at last. It’s what’s been festering between them for weeks, the reason why lately Levi has been pricklier and more closed off than usual.  
  
It’s not an easy question to answer on a clear head, and Erwin is exhausted. For a moment he thinks the timing _is_ perfect; he thinks perhaps Levi planned this: waited until he knew Erwin was too tired to keep all his defences up, too exhausted to think his way out of it, and sprung the question then. He wouldn’t put it past him, either. Levi trusts Erwin with his life and the feeling is mutual, but at the end of the day that doesn’t mean as much as one would think. There are things more fragile than one’s life, things that Levi is wary of trusting Erwin with – things that Erwin himself is too afraid to touch.  
  
War is easy, but what they have with Eren is not a battlefield. Erwin’s cold logic has no place here.  
  
(But what _does_ , then?  
  
What _is_ between them? What is this _thing_ that defies all reason?)  
  
Erwin is tired. There’s a bone-deep exhaustion that he can’t seem to shake no matter what but it gets easier to bear when they are around. It never really goes away, but Levi makes him forget about it for a while with his filthy mouth and bedroom eyes, and Eren—Eren burns bright and takes up space, demands attention without asking for it. Giving into them comes naturally and Erwin never stopped to ask himself why.  
  
Never—until now.  
  
He sighs again and rests his forehead on his hands. “I don’t know, Levi.”  
  
It’s the honest truth: he doesn’t know. And it’s a little frightening that he’s doing something out of some unnamed impulse and that the thought of stopping is almost too revolting to even contemplate.  
  
The chair creaks and screeches against the floorboards when Levi gets up. His footsteps barely make a sound. Erwin doesn’t look up until he feels him close, the smell of clean clothes and leather oil and a hint of sweat.  
  
“I don’t know,” he says.  
  
Levi runs his fingers through Erwin’s hair. It’s an oddly gentle touch, intimate and raw and _frightening_ because it’s something reserved for those moments when they’re still drunk on pleasure and there’s an excuse for tenderness.  
  
“I don’t know either,” Levi admits quietly and his fingers tighten in Erwin’s hair for a moment. “But we need to figure it out, and soon, before the brat does something stupid like fall in love.”  
  
“Yeah,” Erwin breathes. He can’t tear his eyes away from Levi’s. He can’t help but lean into his touch. “Yeah,” he says, “that would be unfortunate.”


End file.
